No colony can be legalized soon in Delhi

The land use of these colonies can't be changed as per the Delhi cutoff date unless the Union urban development ministry gets it approved by Parliament and notifies it again, said DDA officials.Risha Chitlangia | TNN | July 27, 2015, 18:56 IST

NEW DELHI: The Delhi government may be getting ready to regularize unauthorized colonies but there is no clarity on the cutoff date yet. The AAP government had recently revised the Parliament-approved date of June 1, 2014 for regularization to January 1, 2015. But the land use of these colonies can't be changed as per the Delhi cutoff date unless the Union urban development ministry gets it approved by Parliament and notifies it again, said DDA officials.

The Delhi government will mark the boundaries in the 1,639 unauthorized colonies based on construction till January 1, 2015 and send them to the municipal corporations for layout preparations. The layouts will be sent to DDA and later to the Union UD ministry for notifying change of land use.

"There is confusion over the dates. Even if the government marks the boundaries as per the revised cutoff, other agencies will follow the Centre's cutoff of June 2014," said a source.

The cutoff confusion will only add to the delay in regularizing the colonies. "It is a time-consuming process. Once it comes to DDA, it will take at least one-and-a-half years to notify the change in land use," said a senior DDA official. Sources said DDA, the land-owning agency in Delhi that comes under the Union government, can't accept the boundaries set by the Delhi government as it won't be in accordance with the ministry's notification.

The corporations are also confused about the cutoff dates, but have already demanded financial assistance from the government for preparing the layouts. Although the Congress-led government in Delhi had initially promised to pay for regularizing 895 colonies, later it refused to pay.

"We want clarity on the cutoff dates and who will pay for it. The corporations can't pay as we are facing a financial crisis and resident welfare associations of these colonies are unwilling to pay. We want the AAP government to pay for the layouts," said Yogender Chandolia, leader of House, North Corporation.

While the Delhi government is planning to come out with a policy for regularization of unauthorized colonies, officials said, it will take a long time to complete the process. The proposal will be first approved by DDA's steering committee, followed by the technical committee before being placed in its decision-making body. The proposal will go to the UD ministry, which will invite suggestions/objections, and send it back to DDA for final clearance before notifying the change in land use.

"We have to ensure there is no dispute on the land before the final regularization notification is issued," said a senior DDA official.